Nov. 1 (UPI) — U.S. death rates from heart disease spiked in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic after a steady decline from 2010 to 2019 and reversing a decades-long drop since at least the 1990s.
Death rates increased among adults of all ages, and across sex, race and ethnicity groups, particularly among younger adults and non-Hispanic Black adults.
That’s according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2022 conference running Saturday to Monday in Chicago. The heart group released the abstract Monday.
“Prior to 2020, death rates from heart disease had been declining among adults for decades, which has been recognized by the CDC as one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the last century,” Rebecca C. Woodruff, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the study’s lead author — said in a news release.
She added: “The increases in death rates from heart disease in 2020 represented about five years of lost progress among adults nationwide and about 10 years of lost progress among younger adults and non-Hispanic Black adults.”
That translated to the national heart disease death rate increasing by 4.1% in 2020, while the rate dropped by 9.8% from 2010 to 2019, the researchers said.
Among 35- to 54-year-old adults, deaths from heart disease increased by 12% in 2020 versus a 5.5% drop from 2010 to 2019. Among 55- to 74-year-old adults, heart disease death rates rose by 7.8% in 2020, but fell by 2.3% from 2010 to 2019.
Among non-Hispanic Black adults, heart disease death rates climbed by 11.2% in 2020, after declining by 10.4% from 2010 to 2019.
Woodruff noted the pandemic disrupted access to preventive health care, which may have led to delays in detecting and treating heart disease.
Yet, while public health experts expected to see a rise in heart disease death rates among adults, “the magnitude of the increase was striking,” she said.
While further research is needed, the researchers said growing evidence suggests people who have had COVID-19 infection may face an increased risk for new or worsening cardiovascular disease.
That, they said, may have been a factor in the rising rates of heart disease deaths from 2019 to 2020.
Other factors associated with the pandemic lockdown, including lack of physical activity, and increased smoking and alcohol use, also may have contributed to the higher cardiovascular death rates, American Heart Association President Dr. Michelle A. Albert, the Walter A. Haas-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, said in the release.
For their study, the investigators used a CDC database that aggregates death certificate data from across the United States from the National Vital Statistics System.
